The Council for Wisconsin Writers blog is now part of CWW’s redesigned website at http://wiswriters.org/category/news/. Consequently, the blog at this site is being retired. Everyone who follows this blog will have to resubscribe to the blog at its new location. We apologize for this inconvenience, but think that, once resubscribed, followers will find it more convenient because it won’t be necessary to go from one site to another to get CWW news and information.

Erik Richardson lives in Milwaukee where he runs a small e-learning firm (Richardson Ideaworks) as well as a fledgling non-profit (Every Einstein) focused on providing hands-on STEM resources for students and teachers. He is the author of a berserker stuck in traffic from Pebblebrook Press, and some of his work has appeared in Nerve Cowboy, Stoneboat, and Chiron Review among others.

Mark Zimmermann teaches writing courses at the Milwaukee School of Engineering and lives in Milwaukee with his wife Carole and two cats. He currently serves as the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets’ representative to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and is a member of the Hartford Avenue Poets. Recently his poetry has been featured on Milwaukee Public Radio’s “Lake Effect” and in numerous print publications. His poetry collection Impersonations was also published by Pebblebrook Press, in 2015.

It’s the annual reading of students from area colleges and universities, traditionally including voices from Lakeland College, Ripon College and/or Marian University. Guaranteed to be a high-energy experience!

THELMA’s Foot of the Lake Reading Series is regularly held the first Tuesday of the month in Cafe 1906 from October through May (except January). This free event includes a guest writer, open mic and a cash bar. Readings begin at 7 pm and the doors open at 6:30 pm.

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ANITA BECKSTROM

Wednesday, April 8

UUF, 10341 Highway 42, Ephraim

7 pm, open mic to follow

On the second Wednesday of every month the Dickinson Poetry Series features a reading by a local or regional poet followed by an open mic and reception. The public is welcome, and admission is free. For more information visit www.uufdc.org or call 920.854.7559.

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WI POET LAUREATE KIMBERLY BLAESER

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Marian University, Fond du Lac

7 pm

The Marian University English department is excited to announce that Wisconsin Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser is reading at the Stayer Center Auditorium on the Marian University Campus, 45 S. National Ave, Fond du Lac. Please join us for an evening of poetry and chance to meet our Poet Laureate.

Kimberly Blaeser is a Professor at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches Creative Writing and Native American Literatures. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Apprenticed to Justice, Absentee Indians and Other Poems, and Trailing You. Blaeser is Anishinaabe, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, and grew up on the White Earth Reservation in northwestern Minnesota. She is the editor of Stories Migrating Home: A Collection of Anishinaabe Prose and Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry. Blaeser, is currently at work on a collection of “Picto-Poems” which combines her photographs and poetry.

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FOX CITIES BOOK FESTIVAL TIME!

April 18 – 24

Mark your calendars for Poetry Day on Saturday, April 23. Plus, of course, dozens of other readings and presentations throughout the week. Check out the website at http://www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org/ for more details as they become available.

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ANDREW MCSORLEY

Monday, April 21

Half Price Books, 281 N. Casaloma Dr., Appleton

6:30 pm, open mic to follow

In honor of National Poetry Month, Half Price Books in Appleton will feature poet will be Andrew McSorley followed by an open mic. Andrew is a graduate of the MFA program in creative writing at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His poetry has appeared in the anthologyVision/Verse 2009-2013 and in journals such as The Minnesota Review, Blue Earth Review, and The Lindenwood Review. He lives in Appleton, Wisconsin where he works at the Seeley G. Mudd Library at Lawrence University.

All open mic readers will have a chance to win a gift card. We’ll have light refreshments.

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MARYANN HURTTTuesday, April 26

Caramel Crisp, 200 E City Center, Oshkosh

6:15 – 7:30 pm featured reader, followed by an open mic

The reading is located in the game room beyond the cafe portion of the building. Please come early and treat yourself to coffee, dessert or other goodies to enjoy during the reading. For further information contact Kay Sanders at rksanders42@gmail.com or Mandi Isaacson at mandiisaacson@gmail.com.

Create a videotape of you reciting a poem you love, from memory. Please introduce your poem with a sentence or two including the name of the poem and the poet, perhaps noting why the poem or poet is important to you, when you memorized the poem, or whatever else seems appropriate to a very brief introduction. Send a good quality video submission of you reciting that poem to wipoetlaureate@gmail.com with the subject line “Submission Recitation Project” followed by your name (for example: Submission Recitation Project, Kimberly Blaeser).
In your email, include the name of the reciter, the title and author of the poem performed, and the location and date of the recitation. By submitting your video to this email address, you are giving permission to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission to post your video and make it available for public viewing.*

Want to make this more interesting? Challenge friends and public figures to recite. Plan a gathering with a group in a public place and hold a recitation event! Or join a recitation event the Wisconsin Poet Laureate will hold in the coming months. Then submit the videos of individual recitations from your “poetry by heart” celebration.
Video submissions will be considered by an editorial committee. All acceptable submissions will be posted on an interactive map of Wisconsin and made available on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate webpage: http://www.wisconsinpoetlaureate.org/ Submissions will continue to be reviewed on a rolling basis, but the deadline for consideration for an April launch of the recitation map is 5 p.m. March 31, 2016.*Participants under eighteen years of age must provide the email address of a parent or guardian who can provide permission for posting of the video.

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May 1deadline: The Peninsula Pulse newspaper in Door County is one of the administrators of the annual Hal Prize writing and photography contest, which offers publication to a readership of more than 17,000, cash awards for first place winners, a week stay at our partnering organization, Write On, Door County, and other prizes. Submissions are now being accepted at thehalprize.com

We hope friends, family, supporters and advocates of Wisconsin’s awesome legacy of Wisconsin’s writing excellence and excellent writers will celebrate with these winners and honor them by attending the Council for Wisconsin Writers Awards Banquet on May 14 at the Wisconsin Club at 11 a.m. Details and reservation forms will be posted on http://www.wiswriters.org .

Seven Wisconsin writers have been named winners of the Wisconsin Writers Awards for work published in 2015. The Council will award each winner $500 and a week-long writing residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point. Honorable mentions will receive $50 each. Out-of-state judges made the selections.

The Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award goes to Judith Claire Mitchell, Madison, for A Reunion of Ghosts, Harper Collins.

John Gurda, Milwaukee, is the winner of the Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award for Milwaukee, City of Neighborhoods, Historic Milwaukee, Inc., while Lynne Diebel, Stoughton, receives honorable mention for Crossing the Driftless, University of Wisconsin Press.

Ronald Wallace of Madison, is the winner of the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award for the

book For Dear Life, University of Pittsburgh Press. Honorable mention goes to The Sacred Monotony of Breath, Prolific Press, by Robert Nordstrom of Mukwanago.

Gayle Rosengren of Fitchburg, is winner of the Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award for Cold War on Maplewood Street, Penguin Random House. Ann Bausum of Janesville receives honorable mention for Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights, Penguin Random House.

Matt Cashion of La Crosse, is the winner of the Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction for “Any Idiot Can Feel Pain,” Grist. Jackson Tobin of Madison, is the recipient of an honorable mention for “Kneecap,” Midwestern Gothic.

The winner of the $250 CWW Essay Award for Young Writers is Hannah. L. Nies, a junior at Waunakee High School, for her essay, “The Girl in the Moon.”

The public is invited to celebrate our state’s fine writers at the CWW’s Awards Banquet at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 14, at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee. Banquet tickets must be reserved by Tuesday, May 10.

More information about the winners, judges, banquet registration, and the Council

Soundings features the work of 57 poets on many dimensions of Door County: the big waters and inland lakes; iconic locations; typical buildings and businesses; social activities; notable characters; the weather. The anthology was edited by the Door County Poets’ Collective. Estella Lauter, past Poet Laureate of Door County, was inspired to create the anthology after reading a similar one about Madison. Soundings, the title of the anthology, is a nod to the peninsula’s nautical heritage, a term for the way sailors in the past measured the depth of water, but, Lauter explains, “also refers to the practice of reading poems aloud to hear all the possibilities of meaning in the voices they carry

ON DECK AT COPPER ROCK:

April 18 Erik Richardson and Mark Zimmerman (kick-off of the Fox Cities Book Festival!)
May 16 Marilyn Taylor and Sarah Busse
June 20 Karl Garson and John Olski
July 18 Sylvia Cavanaugh and Cathryn Cofell

For more information on the Poetry Rocks series contact Sarah Gilbert at pses@sbcglobal.net.

MORE READINGS IN NORTHEAST WI

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NANCY RAFAL

Wednesday, March 9

UUF, 10341 Highway 42, Ephraim

On the second Wednesday of every month the Dickinson Poetry Series features a reading by a local or regional poet followed by an open mic and reception. The public is welcome, and admission is free. For more information visit www.uufdc.org or call 920.854.7559.

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EKPHRASTIC ART/POETRY SHOW

Friday, March 18

EBCO Artworks, 1201 Erie Avenue, Sheboygan

Gallery open from 6-10:00 pm

Half-hour poetry readings at 6:45 and 8:00 pm

Georgia Ressmeyer and Marilyn Zelke-Windau are coordinating this ekphrastic art/poetry show featuring poems by members of the Mead Public Library Poetry Circle (including, among others, Maryann Hurtt, Nancy Harrison Durdin, Dawn Hogue, Sylvia Cavanaugh, Kathryn Gahl, and Jean Biegun) and artwork by members of Sheboygan Visual Artists. The gallery will also be open for viewing from 11:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 19, 20, and April 2, 3, 9, 10.

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ROBERT NORDSTROMTuesday, March 22

Caramel Crisp, 200 E City Center, Oshkosh

6:15 – 7:30 pm featured reader, followed by an open mic

Robert Nordstrom worked as an editor/writer for various trade and scholarly publications for over 30 years. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published poetry, fiction and essays in numerous publications. His poetry collection, The Sacred Monotony of Breath, was published by Prolific Press in 2015.

The reading is located in the game room beyond the cafe portion of the building. Please come early and treat yourself to coffee, dessert or other goodies to enjoy during the reading. For further information contact Kay Sanders at rksanders42@gmail.com or Mandi Isaacson at mandiisaacson@gmail.com.

On deck at Caramel Crisp:

April 26 – Maryann Hurtt

May 24 – Bill Urbrock (Memorial Day May 30)

June 28 – Wendy Schmidt

July 26 – Lisa Vihos

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KUBASTA

Wednesday, March 30

Ripon College Project Space, 314 Watson Street, downtown Ripon

7:30 pm

Poetry reading with C. Kubasta and the artwork of Mollie Oblinger – featured in Kubasta’s new book,

All Beautiful & Useless—from. Oblinger is associate professor of Art at Ripon College. Kubasta experiments with hybrid forms, excerpted text, and shifting voices—her work has been called claustrophobic and unflinching. A Lovely Box (Finishing Line Press) won the 2014 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Chapbook Prize. She currently teaches English and Gender Studies at Marian University, in Fond du Lac.

Traverse the Midwestern frontier — from the turbulent changes of settlement to the tragedies of the Black Hawk War — with the man whose job it was to mediate it all, Indian Agent John Kinzie. A new Wisconsin Historical Society Press biography, The Silver Man: The Life and Times of Indian Agent John Kinzie, chronicles the Wisconsin agent’s life, and in doing so, shares his front-row perspective of a pivotal time in the history of the American Midwest and American Indian relations. From the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War to the monopoly of the American Fur Company and the forced removal of thousands of Ho-Chunk people from their native lands, Kinzie served as the primary agent in Fort Winnebago (present-day Portage), Wisconsin, working to find common ground between two seemingly polar parties.

Drawing from Kinzie’s own writings-as well as those of his famous author wife, Juliette Kinzie-biographer Peter Shrake explores this unique story, shining light on a dark and confusing time.

SPECIAL BOOK LAUNCH EVENTS

Publication of this book was made possible in part through a generous grant from the organization that operates the Historic Indian Agency House where Kinzie lived, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Wisconsin. The Dames are hosting two special book launch events at the Indian Agency House in Portage this spring to celebrate the book’s release.

Indian Agency House Book Party: On May 15, join author Peter Shrake and the Colonial Dames at 1 p.m. to celebrate both the opening day for the historic site this season and the release of the book. The event will feature a presentation on the “Life and Times of Indian Agent John Kinzie.” A book signing in the house’s gift shop will follow.

The Kinzies: A Historic Couple: Then, at 6:30 p.m. on June 28 Shrake kicks off the site’s Summer Lecture Series. He will be joined by Kathe Crowley Conn, author of the Society Press’s biography for young readers on Juliette Kinzie, for a unique look at the story of the couple and how this husband-wife team made history, shaped history, and recorded the history of the Wisconsin frontier.

MORE EVENTS

In addition to special events at the Kinzie historic site in Portage, Shrake will be sharing the Indian agent’s story at book talks throughout Wisconsin and beyond, including:

Location: Villa Louis, a Wisconsin Historical Society site, Prairie du Chien, Wis. The book talk takes place during Villa Louis’ annual War of 1812 Reenactment Weekend. The celebration runs July 16 and 17, with a book talk at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday. A book signing will follow.

Location: Wisconsin Historical Museum, 30 N. Carroll Street, Madison, Wis. This lecture is part of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s History Sandwiched In program at its museum on the square in Madison. A book signing will follow.

About the authorPeter Shrake is a lifelong resident of Wisconsin. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, focusing on Jacksonian Indian policy in Wisconsin. He also earned a master’s degree of library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin. Shrake served as the executive director of the Sauk County Historical Museum for eight years. For three years he worked as a reference archivist for the Wisconsin Historical Society Library and Archives. Since 2011, he has been the archivist at Circus World Museum. He lives in Baraboo with his wife and sons.